Page 57 of Blood Moon

And without anything more, he left.

Beth gave Max a thorough and candid account of the day. This time she didn’t omit or sugarcoat anything. She summed up by telling him without apology that she was hiding away with John Bowie in a fishing camp in a swamp.

“Jesus,” Max said. “That’s a thing?”

“It’s a thing. This one has been in his family for generations. It’s like a museum with very unique exhibits.”

“None I’d pay to see.”

She laughed. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said, noticing a length of twine attached to the wall at both ends. Dangling from it was a row of aged Christmas cards. “Before, I lied by omission because I didn’t want to upset you. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. I know you don’t approve, and that you’ll—”

She was interrupted by a gurgling sound that alarmed her. “Are you strangling?”

The alarming sound continued. She came up on her knees on the bed. “Max?Max!” Then she realized that he wasn’t choking. “You’re laughing?”

“Well, it’s funny.”

“Funny? You scared me half to death. What are you laughing at?”

“How long have you worked with me?”

“What?”

“Answer me.”

“Five years.”

“Right. For five years you’ve sat in on meetings, listened in on telephone conversations, seen me at my worst, which is actually when I’m at my best.”

“Yes, and so?”

“How could you not see my manipulation for what it was?”

She dropped back onto her bottom, making the bed springs squeal.

He was still laughing a phlegmy laugh. “You’ve seen me do it to unsuspecting people a thousand times. From postmen to producers to politicians. But when I used it on you, you were blind to it.”

She sagged against the pillows on the bed, too dismayed to speak.

“You came into my office with your cheeks flushed, asked for a minute and then spent thirty advancing the possibility that something was wormy about that Mellin investigation. Ineptitude, or a cover-up, or whatever.

“You insisted the case, ergo our story that documented it, warranted another look. And why? The main reason why? Because of a blood moon, a phenomenon shrouded in mystery and superstitious bullshit.” He paused for a beat. “I was riveted.”

“What?”

“It’s juicy. It’s blood-tingling. But even if the spooky moon stuff doesn’t amount to anything, I can smell the stink of corruption in that PD all the way up here. The more I warned you not to meddle in it, the more hell-bent you became to fly down there and talk to Bowie. ”

“You bastard.”

“Would you rather me not have needled you into it?” He waited, then said, “I didn’t think so.”

“Why didn’t you intercede with Brady? Wouldn’t that have been simpler? You could have advised him to postpone the broadcast until—”

“Because that suck-up wouldn’t have agreed to anything I suggested. And even if he had agreed to hold off until we’d done more investigating, he’d have sent someone else down there to do it. One of his flunkies, not you. You discovered the tantalizing hook that everyone else had missed; you deserved to be the one to pursue it.”

“All right. So, knowing that, why didn’t you just say, ‘Here’s your ticket, Beth, be on the next flight?’”

“I had to test your conviction. If it was only a fanciful idea that had fired your imagination, I had to know it. I had to save you from committing professional suicide.”